When you have an important event coming up like a birthday or concert (cough, Eras Tour, cough) the last thing you need is your phone dying halfway through the night.
In this day and age, most major smartphones aka Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy S Series and Google Pixel have decent battery life, the recent iPhone 15 lasts up to 29 hours and the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra can be used for up to two days without being plugged in.
But sometimes, our smartphones can betray us and pass away at the time we need them the most.
To ensure that your precious smartphone doesn’t head off to the land of nod, we’ve put together some quick tips.
Brightness down
This is an easy one. If you set your smartphone’s screen to max brightness, it’ll chew through the battery pretty quickly. Choose a moderate or low setting, or ideally opt for the ‘auto’ mode (if available) that boosts and lowers the backlight depending on ambient light – this will stretch your battery life significantly.
Flight mode
If you’re not actively using them, switching off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth can give you a huge boost in battery life. And besides, the internet is pretty much non-existent in an arena. If you leave them running, they’ll both keep sniffing out new (and unwanted) connections, putting a constant drain on your phone that’s easy to avoid.
Low power mode
If you can’t bear to have your phone temporarily disconnected from the rest of the world, may we suggest low power mode? The major smartphones have this feature with slight variations in names, for instance, Apple has Low Power Mode and Android has Battery Saver. When this mode is switched on, the phone does everything in its power (or lack thereof) to optimise the energy it has left, whether that be reducing brightness or stopping background refresh.
Do not disturb
Sure you want to get notifications, but you don’t need to know your mum hopes you have a good night. Pop on your phone’s do not disturb function to help reduce the battery load during your celebrations. It can also screen your calls, sending everyone to voicemail but you can change that so only your tier one friends can get through to you.
Try and stay off the apps
This seems like an obvious tip, but try not to use your phone as much when you want to conserve battery. That means not living on Insta, doom scrolling TikTok or calling every single person in your contact book.
Get yourself a power bank
If your phone is a couple of years old, chances are the battery is not as reliable as its newer model on the market. If you need to be on the apps 24/7, it might be best to grab yourself a power bank. We have a list of some of the best ones you can buy right now.
And if all else fails, you can always find a good, old fashioned payphone.
Image: iStock/Athina Mallis